Cosmote, Vodafone test 375Mbps LTE-A in Greece

OTE’s Greek mobile unit Cosmote and rival cellco Vodafone Greece have each trialled LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) technology, it has been revealed, with both operators achieving downlink transmission speeds of up to 375Mbps via tri-band carrier aggregation (CA). The pilot tests took place in June under laboratory conditions, with the operators expected to launch commercial LTE-A networks in major urban areas upon completion of the necessary technical trials. Each of the Greek cellcos currently offers top speeds of up to 300Mbps over their existing 4G networks.

The trials were enabled by the two companies’ respective acquisitions of spectrum in the 800MHz and 2600MHz bands, back in October 2014. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Cosmote and Vodafone each acquired two paired 5MHz blocks in the 800MHz band, while Cosmote acquired 2×30MHz blocks of 2600MHz spectrum, compared to Vodafone’s 2×20MHz allocation in the same band. Both operators also won two unpaired 10MHz blocks in the 2600MHz band.